Chapter Twenty One
The air bit cold, that damp spring chill that sank straight through my leather suit despite the layers underneath.
Middlesbrough never slept easy, but around three in the morning it felt like the whole town was holding its breath.
Streetlamps threw weak yellow cones over cracked pavements, care home windows glowing faintly with tired nurses moving behind the glass.
We lingered in the shadows, five bikes lined along the curb like wolves waiting on the edge of the flock.
The door opened. Our man emerged hunched against the night, collar pulled high, the cheap tat of a jacket providing minimal defense against the dead of a cloudless night.
A glow of orange, shaking in the tiniest of breezes, as he lit the cigarette.
It lit up his face for a second. Lined. Tired.
But not stupid. He leaned against the car, taking long steady pulls, his eyes closing as he inhaled, the fix moving through his system.
I knew he’d want more, but in the carpark of the care home that employed him, he couldn’t be careless.
When he reached the bowels of the town centre, he’d link his bloke and sort out a scruffy little deal.
A ten-bag, barely enough to get him monged.
But he’d collapse onto that scruffy sofa in his two-up, two-down with a rolly and a bottle of cheap cider.
He flicked the butt into the gutter and climbed into his car.
Our engines were idling a little way off, but as we pulled out behind him, there was no slipping in.
The bikes screamed our presence, and already he was checking his mirror before we’d even hit the first junction, twitchy little glances, the kind of nervous habit that grew into full-blown panic the longer we tailed him.
By the time he hit the A-road, his head was on a swivel. Rear-view. Side mirrors. Hands tight on the wheel. The exhaust coughed when he pushed harder, trying to shake us. The man was deceiving himself. A one-litre Corsa against five racing bikes? But we didn’t move just yet.
The roads stretched quiet out here, the usual noise of town falling away to nothing. Just dark fields on one side, the empty retail park on the other. The only sounds were his tyres humming on tarmac and our bikes closing in, engines snarling loud and hungry.
We spread out. Two in front, cutting his pace. Two flanking him, boxing him on either side. I took the back, tailing him, the noose tightening.
His brake lights flared. He was trapped, and he knew it. I saw the whites of his eyes flash in the mirror, wide and scared, sweat shining under the glow of the dashboard.
One lad on his right pointed, jerking his chin toward the slip road into the retail park. A silent command. He shook his head. Fool move. Another bike revved hard and sharp, the sound splitting the quiet night. He flinched, nearly clipped the curb, and this time when the signal came, he obeyed.
We funnelled him down the side road, away from lights, away from houses, deeper into the dark of the industrial estate. No traffic. No cameras. Just warehouses with steel shutters pulled down and weeds breaking through the concrete.
He pulled into the dead end where we wanted him, headlights spilling pale over graffitied brick. His engine cut, and we turned off ours. The silence was thick, broken only by the creak of his door and his breathing, fast, shallow.
He inched out, eyes darting from bike to bike, hands trembling at his sides. He didn’t even try to run. Just stood there, chest heaving, waiting for whatever came next.
Fear had a sound. You could hear it in the crack of his breath, in the way his boots scuffed against gravel when he shifted weight. His face was pale, lips pressed tight, and he made no effort to stop the shaking.
And we hadn’t even said a word yet.
“Baz Winspear?” I asked, tipping my visor up but not removing my lid.
“Who wants to know?” He’d tried to sound brave. Hard. But his voice had cracked.
“You owe Dunnie money, aye?”
He nodded. “I get paid next week. I told him I’d have it for him then.”
“And what you gonna do tonight? Where is your fix coming from, huh? Dunnie cut you off?”
He nodded again, glancing at his feet like a reprimanded schoolboy.
Reaching into my jacket pocket, I pulled out the bag, letting it hang between two fingers.
Slow. Deliberate. The plastic crinkled in the night air, catching what little light there was from the distant streetlamps.
Inside, the green wasn’t the dull, dry shit Dunnie palmed off to mugs like Baz.
This was proper stuff. Fat nuggets, tight and sticky, crystals glinting like frost on grass.
Even through the plastic I could smell it: sharp, sweet, almost citrus.
The kind that hit the back of your throat before you’d even sparked it up.
Not Dunnie’s dusty scrapings, bone-dry stems and leaves that smoked like cardboard.
This was the sort of gear that promised a proper head-rush, heavy eyelids and a grin you couldn’t shift.
Baz’s eyes locked on it straight away, hunger cutting through whatever front he’d been trying to hold up.
His Adam’s apple bobbed hard as he swallowed, and his fingers twitched like he wanted to snatch it, like a kid watching sweets dangling just out of reach.
I almost laughed. It was pathetic, the way blokes like him lived their lives around this shit.
But that was the point. We had him right where we wanted him.
Desperate. Willing. And about to learn what happens when you let the wrong people own your next hit.
“Why?” the whisper was almost inaudible.
“Because, Baz. You have something we want.”
He looked at me, confused, like I was speaking a whole other language.
“I…I.”
I was too tired to drag this out longer than it needed to be.
“You administer drugs in the home, aye?”
He exhaled, his eyes darting to the bag I still dangled in the air and then back to me. Then he nodded.
“That home has something we need. You’re going to get it for us. In return, we’ll tell Dunnie to wipe off your debt.”
“I can’t. I can’t lose my job. I have the mortgage to pay. And the credit cards.”
“And your wife to care for. Aye? We know. Alzheimer’s?”
Baz nodded.
“And the only reason you’re still here is because of this?”
I shook the bag, and his attention darted back to it, his eyes tracking it hungrily.
“What would happen to your wife if you weren’t here, fella? You got family?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed again, and after a pause, he shook his head.
“Then work with us, not against us, or there’ll be no one left to look after her. I want gabapentin. And you can get into the pharmacy. You’ll stash it away…”
“I don’t have a key,” he interrupted.
“You’ll find one. I don’t fucking care how. You’ll falsify records. We’ll collect tomorrow night. You’ll drive out here, and you’ll meet one of us. We’ll be unmarked. No patches. We’ll ask you if ‘you’ve got the snacks’. Understand?”
Baz nodded silently.
“Good lad,” I passed him the bag. “Go home. Get sparked up. See you tomorrow night.”
He plucked the bag from my fingers, glancing at me like I might change my mind. Or bite him. In the distance, I heard a roar. Deep and grumbling. Familiar.
“Oh, and Baz?” I called out, watching him turn around stiffly. “You live at 43 Devon Terrace, Linthorpe Road, aye?”
Baz nodded, his face growing paler still, if that was even possible.
In front of me, the wiry man slid back into the driver’s seat, the headlights catching the bikes in front of it.
The Honda’s deep blue fairing shimmered like liquid metal; silver streaks sliced along its curves and the emblem catching the light like a flash of chrome, polished and sharp.
Beside it, the Kawasaki was black as oil, neon-green accents glowing harsh and angular, the signature Kawasaki script reflecting like knives across the fairing.
Every racing stripe, every tiny decal leapt out in the sudden brightness.
The rumble in the dark grew louder. A Harley on the road almost above us. Not one: multiple. Hair prickled on my arms.
Baz pulled out carefully, eyeing the bikes as he slid free from our grasp.
“Reckon he’ll be back tomorrow night?” Skinny asked, limping closer.
“Aye, he’ll be back.”
I swirled my forefinger over my head, and we moved back to our bikes, mounting up.
A rumble again. Harley’s. I glanced at Skinny, and he looked at me, holding my stare.
“Reckon we’re about to get company,” I shouted over the engines.
Skinny nodded. “We make it to the main road together. We get challenged, we split, ride for home, not the clubhouse. There’s only one reason there’s a group of Harley’s on the road at this hour. Ride fast.”
Every bike was awake now. The collective scream vibrated the crumbling concrete beneath us. Kickstands flicked up, and I pressed the button on my handlebars, retracting the number plate. I was breaking all kinds of laws tonight. I didn’t need to leave a trail behind me.
We rode for the main road, watching our wing mirrors.
It was quiet. Most people asleep. The road stretched ahead, empty and slick with the chill of early spring.
For a few miles, we eased back, letting the bikes breathe, the threat of the Harleys fading into the darkness behind us.
The curves of the road glimmered under the occasional streetlight, our headlights carving ribbons of white in front of us.
Every gear shift, every rev of the engine felt controlled, deliberate.
And tension bled out, if only for a moment.